"...not as vocabulary, not as syntax, not even as structure, but as a principle and a presence." -John Berger

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Thursday, January 10, 2008

Anne Carson

Lines

While talking to my mother I neaten things. Spines of books by the phone.Paperclipsin a china dish. Fragments of eraser that dot the desk. She speaks longingly of death. I begin tilting all the paperclips in the other direction. Out the window snow is falling straight down in lines. To my mother,loveof my life, I describe what I had for brunch. The lines are fallingfasternow. Fate has put little weights on the ends (to speed us up) I wantto tell her ⎯sign of God’s pity. She won’t keep meshe says, she won’t run up my bill. Miracles slip past us. Thepaperclips are immortally aligned. God’s pity! How longwillit feel like burning, said the child trying to be kind.